On Thursday, he returned with his wife, Kathy, for an energy conference at the campus, where Boyt is now director of the college’s Missouri Alternative and Renewable Energy Technology Center.

The Tessmers are in the midst of building a “green, eco-friendly” house in Neosho, Terry Tessmer said. That’s one of the reasons they thought attending Thursday’s “Energy, Efficiency and the Environment” symposium might prove worthwhile.

“We were looking for ideas,” he said. “And we’re energy-minded people anyway.”

The all-day energy conference, hosted by the Neosho Area Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with the Crowder MARET Center, featured lectures and workshops from a wide range of people, including top names in the renewable energy field, local alternative energy providers, and many others, including Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, who gave a morning address.

There were also about a dozen or so booths set up in the Elsie Plaster Center, mostly by area businesses and all pertaining to either renewable energy technology or energy efficiency.

At midday, Boyt presented a PowerPoint update on Crowder’s future MARET Center facility and nearby wind turbine, the tower of which had been erected just a couple days before.

When the first part of the MARET Center building is completed next year, it will offer not only a home for Crowder’s alternative energy department, but also serve as a living lab, since the structure itself would entirely operate on solar and wind power, Boyt said. The facility will also harvest rainwater runoff, redirecting it into retention ponds, and offer several other “green building” features.

After an awards ceremony, the individual workshops, or breakout sessions, continued, including one hosted by Shane Bennett, a Crowder student and partner in a new upcoming alternative energy business called Sol-Stainable Technologies.

About six months ago, Bennett and some classmates decided to market some of the technology they were learning about in their college courses. Sol-Sustainable Technologies, the MARET Center’s first incubation business, was born as a result.

The emerging company is starting out by converting small gasoline or electric battery-powered carts into solar vehicles. The city of Neosho has given the first little push by donating three used golf carts.

Each cart is powered by a 200-water solar panel on the roof, which feeds energy into six six-volt batteries. Bennett said the carts’ top speed is only about 15 miles per hour, but that’s OK, he said, considering the targeted market areas are golf courses, theme parks, retirement communities and other interior road locations.

The benefits of solar-powered carts versus gasoline or even electric-powered are many, according to Bennett. Fuel costs are an obvious factor when dealing with gasoline-ran carts (the sun’s rays are free), as well as certain noise and pollutant issues. Meanwhile, electric carts have to be recharged (versus the solar carts which are constantly being energized), frequently run out of juice (under the battery panel of most golf carts is a “haul” switch), and the recharging box is rather heavy.

“You take a 60-pound battery charger and have your grandma carry that 10 feet — that will make you feel pretty bad,” Bennett said. “We want to get away from that, throw those things away. Let people use something that is practical, that they never even see because it’s right above them, and help them financially, because it’s free electricity.”

There are also federal tax credits, he said, available for up to 30 percent of what it takes to convert a cart into solar for customers who just want to buy a complete kit from Sol-Sustainable Technologies and do the job themselves.

Although solar vehicles that run at highway speed or above are possible to manufacture, they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce, Bennett said, and aren’t practical. Still, from a business perspective, it’s something to dream about.

“Basically, we’ll have to let technology get around to where we can afford to do something like that,” he said. “But, yeah, we would love to create a hybrid vehicle, and not a gasoline hybrid either, but maybe something with solar panels on it. There’s a lot of talk of bio-fuels and a lot of talk of electric cars in general…so eventually we’d like to take something like the chassis of a golf cart, make it street legal and put a bigger motor in it so that it could travel further distances and at higher speed.”

In the nearer future, however, Sol-Sustainable Technologies will likely expand to market carport solar panels and similar other ventures.

A chamber of commerce ribbon cutting ceremony, welcoming the new company into the business community, marked the end of Thursday’s conference.

For the next year, or until the business gets on its feet, the Crowder MARET Center will provide space, technical support and a marketing partnership. Afterward, the company is off on its own and a second incubation business may take its place.

As to this year’s energy conference — the second annual — Boyt said he was pleased with both the turnout and quality. While 125 people had pre-registered, he estimated that half again that number eventually showed up as walk-on attendees before the day was out.

“(Compared to last year’s conference), we were up about 50 percent in attendance and 150 percent in enthusiasm,” Boyt said.

ENERGY WINNERS

Business winners of these energy awards were all presented with trophies and certificates Thursday during the “Energy, Efficiency and the Environment” Conference at Crowder College: